French Girl Knits: The Ava Shawl

I started crocheting the Ava shawl and it was going swimmingly. Until row 3. Something has gone amiss with row 3 and I can't figure out how to fix it as the book only gives written instruction and not a graphical pattern. So I looked at the book and it said that French Girl Knits designed the shawl, so I threw caution to the wind and went to her website and told her the problem.

And, sweet barking cheese, if she didn't email me back not 3 minutes later! She is working on a knitting book and asked if I could wait a couple of days for her to look at it. Of course, I say. I love that shawl pattern and really, really, want it to work out. So I moved on to the skirt....did you hear that Spiritual Maya? I'm working on the skirt now.

Spiritual Maya had a dream of her sewing clothes and my crocheting embellishments for them. She has to take her sewing machine out of the closet first. I have a sewing machine as well, from that time 17 years ago when I made a quilt from my godchild Jillian. And I never made another one. So, my sewing machine is also in a closet. A closet in the guest house, where, if you have been following along, Hive A lives. I won't be moving that sewing machine any time soon seeing as Mr. Beekeeper has failed to show up again. GRRRRRRRR.

The Children's Hospital by Chris Adrian finally defeated me. I tried so hard

to like it. The writing is quite intriguing. The characters are odd and quirky. However, there are very long pages of exposition where nothing actually happens and there is this background gothic-ness where something AWFUL happened to the protagonist's brother, but we can't find out about it just yet....but here's a gory detail to keep you going. I guess I needed more gorey details, right up front. I'm tired of waiting.

And frankly, I don't want to read stories about slaves or former slaves who owned slaves or white people who owed slaves or freed blacks who owned slaves. Therefore, I am asserting my freedom to read and I'm throwing down The Known World by Edward P. Jones. It's the book club book and I tried to read it, I really tried. I bought it on MP3 so I could crochet AND read it, but it just makes me want to scream. Beautiful language. Brilliantly written, but I'm at the point when I just don't want to read about the horrible, horrible things people did to each other because "God and the law allowed".